HP gets $784 million Veterans deal

Department of Veterans Affairs officials have awarded a 10-year contract to Hewlett-Packard Co. worth a potential $784 million for engineering support services and maintenance of the VistA Health Information Systems.

VistA provides automation and record keeping for nearly every clinical and administrative office within the VA, which operates 170 medical centers throughout the United States and the Philippines. Under the contract, HP will provide support and maintenance to the system to deliver health care data across the VA's 21 networks.

"The VA's teamwork, combined with HP's adaptive enterprise strategy, has resulted in VistA being recognized as one of the premier hospital information systems in the world," said Tom Iannotti, senior vice president of consulting and integration for HP Services.

The VA needs a consistent and reliable flow of medical information to accommodate the growth of the agency's health care system. VistA provides custom integrated software modules running from a single integrated database at individual medical computing centers, according to HP.